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2004.09.06

Geneva has become the first canton (state) in the Swiss federation to allow voting on federal issues via the internet. Some 22,000 people resident in the constituencies of Anières, Carouge, Cologny and Meyrin will be able to cast their ballots by computer beginning this Friday. The Geneva government has set up five information stands complete with an internet connection in the constituencies. The centres will be equipped with experts to assist citizens who don't own a computer or who need advice. The Swiss are to go to the polls on 26 September to decide on a whole range of issues including maternity leave and naturalisation procedures. http://www.dmeurope.com/default.asp?ArticleID=2983

2004.08.04

The Swiss data protection authorities and several political parties have used a governmental consultation round to protest against a proposal to introduce a new sectoral ID number for persons, the SPIN law.

According to the privacy authorities, the proposed law violates both constitutional and data protection principles. The new personal identification number would be sectoral and based on a central server within the federal justice department. But the sectors are not clearly defined or even analysed, thus violating the principle of proportionality. To make it worse, the responsibilities for access, for security, transmission and usage of the PIN are not sufficiently clear. "This results in a lack of transparency and absence of indispensable protection measures." The privacy authorities demand a serious public debate and find the schedule for parliamentary debate (in the winter of 2004) much too early.

In April 2003 the data protection authorities already objected against the planned introduction of a universal identification number. They will only accept a personal identification number (PIN) if used for statistical reasons, specifically aimed at solving the problems with the next population census planned for 2010.

Opinion of the Federal data protection authorities (in French and in German, 28.07.2004) http://www.edsb.ch/f/themen/weitere/epid/stellungnahme_spin.pdf
http://www.edsb.ch/d/themen/weitere/epid/stellungnahme_spin.pdf

2004.06.24

From CORDIS: "ISOC France, Cigref [Club Informatique des Grandes Entreprises Françaises], Medef [Mouvement des Entreprises de France] and the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry are organising a European Internet domain name summit to be held in Paris on 1 July 2004... Discussion topics will include: European Internet; governance, content distribution and intellectual property; digital identity and electronic confidence; Internet's technological innovations; regulating the Internet within Europe; economic intelligence; name space evolutions; the Internet and SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises). For further information, please visit: http://www.egeni.org/en/"

2004.06.04

Donna Leinwand reports in USA Today that Siyamend Othman, chairman of Iraq's National Communications & Media Commission, wrote to ICANN on 20 May to request re-delegation of the .iq top-level country domain. He called the transfer "an important tangible and symbolic milestone for this nation, as well as the freedom and hopes of the Iraqi people..." Afghanistan's application for the .af domain - which ICANN took 6 months to process - apparently was the model for Iraq's.

According to an article last year in Wired News, "Records on file with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority...show that dot-iq was delegated in 1997 to InfoCom of Richardson, Texas. In December 2002, the United States indicted the four Elashi brothers who run InfoCom on charges of providing financial support to Hamas, a Palestinian fundamentalist movement known for its suicide bombings. Three of the men are currently being held in a Texas prison."

ICANN still lists InfoCom as the domain administrator, but last autumn two other people - one living in Los Angeles, the other in Stockholm - claimed to be the manager of the .iq domain in competing applications to join the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO).

2004.06.01

The Associated Press' Anick Jesdanun wrote an article that was reprinted by many newspapers this past weekend: "As more Web sites demand passwords, scammers are getting more clever about stealing them. Hence the need for...'passwords-plus' systems... Scandinavian countries are among the leaders as many online businesses abandon static passwords in favor of so-called two-factor authentication..."

2004.05.31

Florence Olsen dares to write about the failure of market-based e-signature solutions in Federal Computer Week: "Electronic signatures have often been touted as a cornerstone of e-government, providing the legal underpinnings needed to do away with paper and move transactions online. So far, however, e-signatures have failed to deliver on their promise. Although many agencies have launched initiatives, they have been hindered by a number of obstacles, including competing e-signature standards and a lack of interest and understanding by citizens..."

The Warsaw Business Journal, citing a report in Puls Biznesu, says that "Onet.pl, Interia.pl and Gazeta.pl have sent an open letter to [the Polish parliament's] Speakers in protest against changes to the telecommunications law which...will force people to show their ID card to open an e-mail address. No other country has such strict formal requirements. If implemented it will probably mean that Internet users would resign from using Polish portals and move their e-mail addresses abroad."

UPDATE: According to EDRI-gram number 2.11 (2 June 2004), in response to the 3 portals' letter, "the government issued an official statement that promised that the proposal would be re-worded, if the objection was indeed correct. The bill is currently being examined by parliament's infrastructure committee and has not yet been scheduled for a second reading... [See the official statement of the Polish Ministry of Infrastructure (in Polish, 31.05.2004).]

2004.05.06

"The Official Journal of the European Union has published the Commission Regulation (EC) No. 874/2004 of 28 April 2004 laying down public policy rules concerning the implementation and functions of the .eu Top Level Domain and the principles governing registration. The document is available in 11 languages."

2004.04.29

Base21, Jinbonet's website for progressive news in English from South Korea, says: "Lots of civil society entities including press and human rights organizations are showing strong and united resistance against the recently passed Internet Real Name Law as We refuse to comply becomes their mantra. The Internet Real Name Law, which was passed at the plenary session of Parliament on March 9, 2004, requires Internet media and press websites to verify all names and identification numbers of authors who post messages on bulletin boards or chat rooms regarding elections... [The] Internet Real Name Law can [also] be applied to personal websites which contain materials concerning political matters as well as the websites of civil society organizations... Lee Hoon, Vice-President of [the] Association of Internet Newspapers, stressed they would refuse to obey the Internet Real Name Law. Additionally, they would request an immediate repeal of the law...

"159 organizations including human rights, academic and press organizations as well as civil society organizations have refused to obey the Internet real name law. Portal websites such as Media Daum are also participating in the disobedience declaration.... Furthermore, a petition [asserting] the law's unconstitutionality has been filed with the constitutional court requesting a review. Since it is prior censorship which is prohibited by the constitution, and it also restricts freedom of expression of the public regarding political matters, it is deemed [by the petitioners as] unconstitutional..."